Parallelism in Southern Victory
Even among Harry Turtledove's body of work, the Southern Victory series is famous for its parallelism with OTL. What follows is an attempt to document instances thereof. Parallel Characters Anthony Dresser Anton Drexler was a German ultra-nationalist who became involved in right-wing politics at the end of World War I. Along with the like-minded journalist Karl Harrer, he cofounded the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or DAP). In 1919 he recruited Adolf Hitler into his party, and soon found he had a tiger by the tail, as Hitler--who had convinced Drexler to rename the party National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP, more commonly known today as the Nazi Party)--soon eclipsed his own influence and supplanted Drexler as Chairman of the NSDAP. Anthony Dresser, who precedes Jake Featherston as Chairman of the Freedom Party, has an anglicized version of Drexler's name. Dresser's relationship with Featherston is a bit more antagonistic than was Drexler's with Hitler: Hitler merely eclipsed Drexler's authority until Drexler sought out another party, and eventually allowed Drexler to return to the Nazi ranks, though never to hold a position of real influence. Featherston actually purges Dresser, decisively and irreversibly. Flora Hamburger When Flora Hamburger is introduced in American Front, she bears many resemblances to German communist agitator Rosa Luxemburg. Even their names hold similar meanings: Flora means "flower", just like Rosa means "rose", and both Luxembourg and Hamburg are European cities. Both women are Marxists; both are Jews, though Luxemburg was an atheist while Hamburger was merely secular; both are politically radical; both are opposed to their respective countries' involvement in the Great War; and both agitate on behalf of socialist revolution, though Hamburger's commitment to violent overthrow of the government is not quite as strong as Luxemburg's. Still, like Luxemburg, she takes place in anti-war demonstrations which turn bloody. These initial parallels are evidence in support of the popular belief among fans that Turtledove initially intended the Great War series to end with yet another defeat of the United States at the hands of the Confederates. This theory then has the chaotic history of the Weimar Republic playing out in the United States. Of course, if this belief is true, Turtledove eventually changed his mind and decided to make the CS the analog of interwar Germany. At this point he had to draw back from making Hamburger a Luxemburg analog, and her radicalism is gradually dialed down. Hamburger is elected to the House of Representatives, where she initially resembles Jeanette Rankin, the Republican Representative from Montana who, in 1917, became the first female member of Congress in US history. (Hamburger is not the first woman elected to Congress in TL-191, but the first session in which she sits is very male-dominated, with only one other female member of the House, and she the widow of a longtime male Congressman.) Rankin voted against Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war against Germany in 1917. Since the war has already begun when Hamburger is seated, she does not have the opportunity to do so, but she does oppose wartime appropriations and is extremely critical of both the political and military leadership of the war effort. (She had earlier been outraged when influential Socialists in Congress had voted for US entry into the Great War.) Rankin also voted against Franklin D. Roosevelt's declaration of war against Japan in 1941, the only member of either house of Congress to do so. (She abstained from voting on the declaration of war against Germany, contrary to popular belief that she voted No to that declaration as well.) By 1941, the fictional Hamburger has parted ways with the historical Rankin and become rather more hawkish. She votes for declarations of war against all the Entente members and, as a member of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, presses for increasingly aggressive prosecution of the Second Great War as the Settling Accounts tetralogy progresses, even aligning herself with conservative Democrats, including Robert Taft, who had been the party's candidate in the last presidential election. Taft had run on a hawkish platform, the late President Smith had run on a dovish one. Hamburger had, of course, supported Smith at the time, but she eventually admits to Taft that she had come to realize that he'd been right and Smith had been wrong. In the later books of the Southern Victory series, Hamburger (now using her married name of Blackford) bears a loose resemblance to Hillary Clinton: Both women were the wives of Presidents (Flora eventually married Hosea Blackford) and, after their respective tenures as First Lady of the United States, both joined (or, in Flora's case, rejoined) New York's Congressional delegation and both became associated with a more moderate wing of their respective parties. Gordon McSweeney Fans of the series have long hypothesized that Turtledove originally planned for the United States to lose the Great War and to play out an analog of the chaotic history of the Weimar Republic in later volumes. Under this theory, it is believed that Gordon McSweeney would eventually become an analog of Adolf Hitler. Both serve as non-commissioned officers in the first war. (McSweeney would eventually become an officer, but only after Turtledove had abandoned his original plan for the series, if indeed there was such a plan.) Both had reputations for going above and beyond the call of duty, and both were decorated with their government's highest military award. (Hitler also received the Iron Cross, First Class in TL-191 as well as in OTL.) Furthermore, both were extremely self-assured in their belief systems (McSweeney's religious in nature, Hitler's nationalist and racist) and both were alarmingly bigoted toward and intolerant of any individual or member of a group which stood in opposition of these beliefs. McSweeney is fanatically religiously partisan, strongly opposed to Catholicism in particular and all non-Protestant faiths in general (as well as some Protestant faiths which he finds inadequately austere). Despite the Great War in North America being fought among secular governments (not counting the Mormon leadership) and having little if any religious undertones (with the same exception), McSweeney regards violent acts on the battlefield against the Entente are pleasing to God. Of course, this is all with the caveat that the biography of Hitler during the First World War is relatively vague, and accounts have been colored by knowledge of the man he became in later years. It is possible that he did not display these traits at that time, or that they were much more muted than is commonly portrayed. McSweeney is killed at the end of Breakthroughs. Turtledove has admitted that he did not choose to abandon this character at random. In a live chat with readers in 2000, he made the cryptic comment that he "couldn't imagine a character like McSweeney playing a role in peacetime." From this, readers have found further support for the belief that that US was originally supposed to play out German history, with violent civil strife that was definitely not "peacetime" following the war. Irving Morrell Irving Morrell's first name is the Anglicized version of the German name Erwin, and his last name is a near-anagram of Rommel. The similarities between Irving Morrell and Erwin Rommel do not end there. Both were born in 1891. Both attended their countries' military academies in the early twentieth century and both were junior infantry officers at the outbreak of the wars in 1914--World War I in the historical Rommel's case, the Great War in the fictional Morrell's. Both were wounded in action during the war--Morrell once, Rommel three times. Both served on several different fronts, including in both cases elite mountain warfare units. After the war, the parallelism between the two begins to fade (obviously, Rommel did not play a role in the final victory of the German army over its enemies, since the Germans achieved no such victory in World War I - perhaps another indicator that Turtledove originally planned for the USA to lose the Great War), but never disappears altogether. In the interwar years, both preferred "muddy boots" assignments to their countries' General Staffs. At the outset of hostilities (World War II for Rommel, the Second Great War for Morrell), both hold the rank of colonel and command armored units. Both very quickly rise through the ranks and become army group commanders. Both are notorious for leading from the front--thus exposing themselves to needless personal danger, neglecting their duties as field commanders behind the lines, and causing their colleagues to wonder whether they had been promoted beyond their abilities. However, Rommel did so only on occasion, whereas with Morrell the habit is indulged constantly. Both lead extremely aggressive drives against their enemies--Rommel through France in 1940, Morrell through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. During these aggressive drives, both men's army groups' logistical wings are hard-pressed to keep the troops properly supplied. Both generals win the confidence of the men under their command (though not necessarily their fellow generals) and the civilian populations of their respective countries. In fact, both are arguably the most celebrated heroes their countries produce during the war. Both face armies led by George Patton in battle, and in both cases Patton uses tactics which he was inspired to adapt by studying Rommel's (in OTL) and Morrell's (in TL-191) pioneering tactical styles during the early days of mechanized warfare. Both men have differences with their respective heads of state, though the patterns of these differences are opposite. Morrell, a conservative Democrat, is initially horrified when Socialist President Al Smith wins reelection in 1940, fearing (correctly) that Smith's naïve foreign policy will allow and encourage Jake Featherston to attack the United States from an advantageous position. However, once the war starts, Morrell quickly becomes at least outwardly apolitical, and Smith's successor, fellow Socialist Charles W. La Follette, praises Morrell on the public record. (This is somewhat reminiscent of liberal Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's glowing support for conservative Republican Dwight Eisenhower--who would eventually lead the GOP into the White House for the first time since FDR defeated Herbert Hoover.) Rommel, on the other hand, was initially an admirer of Adolf Hitler, and gradually became disenchanted with the dictator's increasingly erratic leadership, until eventually he took part in a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, which resulted in his own death (he committed suicide rather than face execution). Both have working relationships with Heinz Guderian, though obviously the different circumstances of the American fictional character from the German historical figure lead to a very different nature of this relationship in Morrell's case. In their personal lives, the two do not have a great deal in common. However, both are married with one child, though Rommel, unlike Morrell, also had a second, illegitimate child from a relationship before his marriage. Morrell also bears some resemblance to William Sherman in the final two books of the series. When he crosses into Georgia from Tennessee, when he drives on and captures the city of Atlanta, and when he then marches to the sea and up into South Carolina while also sending columns in other directions into the interior of the CSA, he follows Sherman's campaigns in the final year of the American Civil War almost exactly. When the Second Great War ends, he becomes military governor of a military division comprising several former Confederate states. Sherman also became a military governor after the Civil War, though Morrell's district does not align with Sherman's. Morrell also displays some similarities to Soviet general Georgy Zhukov, befitting the parallelism with the United States and the Soviet Union. Specifically Morrell conducts the decisive victories of the United States following earlier defeats, has a record for trouble-making with the General Staff, and conducts both the strategic planning and direct field command of the great and final battles of the war. Don Partridge Many readers have pointed out similarities between Confederate Vice President Don Partridge and Dan Quayle, who served as Vice President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. Obviously, the name Don is close to the name Dan, and the bird called the partridge is related to the quail. Beyond similar names, Partridge is frequently described and sometimes portrayed as a lightweight intellectually and professionally, as a good-looking and affable figure who did not play a significant role in Jake Featherston's policy decisions. Popular perception in the United States during the administration of President George H. W. Bush was that Quayle had been asked to run as Bush's running-mate for similar reasons. Clarence Potter The character of Clarence Potter bears some resemblance to the historical Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who headed German Intelligence for most of the Second World War as Potter headed Confederate Intelligence during the Second Great War. The resemblance is not manifested in specific biographical details (Canaris did not know Adolf Hitler during World War I, never smuggled a nuclear bomb into an Allied city, and ultimately fell foul of Hitler and did not survive the end of the war). However, Potter's basic character and motivation are summed up by Jake Featherston as a staunch Confederate patriot who only accepts Freedom Party rule as long as he judges it to be compatible with the Confederacy's interests, and who would turn against the Party the moment he felt that that would be better for the Confederacy. Exactly the same could be said of Canaris' historically attested attitude to Germany and to Nazi Party rule in Germany, respectively. Clarence Potter's role in organizing and training Confederate units, consisting of soldiers who spoke with "Yankee" accents and had experience with US slang (and US Army uniforms), which operated behind enemy lines, causing chaos and capturing key targets, resembles the actions of Otto Skorzeny in Operation Greif, which was a German attempt to cause problems behind Allied lines by putting German soldiers with a knowledge of English at the Allied rear. However, Greif in OTL didn't have as much as the negative impact as Potter's operations. The trial of Skorzeny after the end of the war also has similarities with Potter's own trial at the end of the war (see below). Parallel Plot Points Confederates Discover a Powerful Force Multiplier: McClellan At the Battle of Camp Hill, George McClellan, commanding the Army of the Potomac, rues the fact that his forces have been outnumbered from the beginning. George Armstrong Custer, the viewpoint character who witnesses this, internally disputes this assertion. At the Battle of Antietam, the historical climax of the Maryland Campaign that leads to Camp Hill in Southern Victory, McClellan had shown a similarly unrealistic view of the relative strengths of the two armies, refusing to commit over 10,000 reserves whom he claimed did not exist against an Army of Northern Virginia whose numbers he greatly overestimated. Fortunately, the results of this lapse were far less disastrous for the Union cause than were those seen in How Few Remain. Schlieffen Plan Alfred von Schlieffen designed the plans which Germany would use should it ever find itself in a two-front war against France and Russia. The plan called for an initial holding action against Russia while the army launched a massive two-pronged invasion of France, with the main column flanking France from the north by marching along the coast of the English Channel, violating the neutrality of the Low Countries in the process. The plan was attempted during World War I, and failed. In Southern Victory, Schlieffen once again draws up Germany's war plans for such a situation, this time taking as his inspiration Robert E. Lee's 1862 Maryland Campaign. How if at all this version of the Schlieffen Plan differs from the historical version is not known. We do see that it is attempted, and fails, as Germany is once again drawn into a protracted two-front war of attrition, which becomes known as the Great War. Revanchism Following the Second Mexican War, the popularity of Remembrance propels the Democratic Party to decades of political dominance, though it remains a unique feature of the Democratic platform and is not embraced by other parties. The United States government makes preparing to fight and win a war against the Confederate States, Canada, Mexico, Britain, and France its top priority. In OTL, revanchism also dominated French politics from their humiliating defeat in the late nineteenth century through the end of World War I. In France, no political party held dominance over this period, but revanchism was a feature of platforms across the political spectrum, and was so popular that a politician who spoke against it risked the ruin of his career. In both instances, the defeat of the hated enemy (World War I in France's case, the Great War in America's) was followed by a brief period of patriotic jubilation, an attempt to impose a harsh peace on the vanquished foe, and then a very rapid loss of interest in further antagonizing the enemy. Day of Infamy President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously referred to the Japanese assault on the United States Navy's base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii as "a date which will live in infamy." In American Front, the US Navy attacks the Royal Navy at Pearl Harbour, defeats it, forces its withdrawal, and takes Hawaii for the United States. British national Alfred Forbes refers to the episode as "a date which will live in infamy for the British fleet." Concrete Battleship In OTL, Fort Drum (El Fraile Island), also known as "the Concrete Battleship" was a heavily fortified island situated at the mouth of Manila Bay in the Philippines. The reinforced concrete fortress shaped like a battleship was built by the United States in 1909 as one of the harbor defenses at the wider South Channel entrance to the bay during the American colonial period. It was captured and occupied by the Japanese during World War II. While it was recaptured by the U.S. in 1945 after US troops pumped two parts diesel oil and one part gasoline into the air vents of the top deck and ignited the mixture with tracer bullets. The fort burned for 14 days and with it neutralized, Japanese resistance in the Bay area ended. This battle is echoed in American Front, during the Great War, and the battle for Fort William Rufus, a British fort located in the Sandwich Islands, similarly christened the "Concrete Battleship". The U.S. vanquishes this British fort in much the same way it did its OTL counterpart. Christmas Truce On Christmas Day, 1914, all along the front between the United States and the Confederacy, front line soldiers of both armies declare impromptu truces and engage in games of football. This parallels the celebrated 1914 Christmas Truce between German and Anglo-French forces on the Western Front, during which the soldiers played soccer. In both the historical and fictional incidents, the various combatants' military leaderships were horrified by the breakdown in discipline. In the Great War, the Christmas Truce was a one-time thing and was not repeated in the second year of the war. In the historical World War I, a second Christmas Truce occurred in 1915, though it was much more muted. There was also a third truce in 1916, though this occurred on the Eastern Front, not the Western. Domestic Unrest in the United States in the late 1910s Following the US victory in the Great War, the country finds itself embroiled in an economic recession which leads to unrest between laborers and their employers. This in turn leads to strikes, which often turn into violent clashes between labor activists on one side and police and private detectives on the other. This also happened in OTL, and lent credence to the claims of nativists that immigration from Eastern Europe must be stopped to prevent infiltration into the US of radical elements. In TL-191, radical elements are already present among native-born American citizens, and they become a force to be reckoned with in American politics. The Democrats lose control of both houses of Congress in 1918 and of the Presidency in 1920. (Democrats also lost control of the elected branches of government in OTL on the same timetable.) The Socialists' domestic policy is very popular among the American electorate. This is a departure from politics at this point in American history, when laissez-faire economics wins the day; however, and perhaps inexplicably, we will soon see signs that the Socialist government is also practicing laissez-faire economics. In TL-191, the Democrats' foreign policy platform remains more popular than the Socialists', but voters no longer view foreign policy as a top concern, for the first time in half a century. In OTL the American electorate also lost interest in foreign policy, emphatically rejecting candidates who supported the League of Nations in favor of candidates of a more isolationist philosophy. Both TL-191 and OTL can date the 1920 Presidential election as the end of a long era of American political history: the Remembrance Era in TL-191, and the Progressive Era in OTL. The defeat of Theodore Roosevelt's bid for reelection so soon after he led the country to victory would have seemed inconceivable a very short time earlier. This is loosely parallel to similar incidents in history, wherein recently-unassailable elected leaders are defeated in their first reelection bid after leading their countries to universally popular military and diplomatic triumph. Examples of this include the United Kingdom's 1945 General Election, in which Winston Churchill's Conservative Party lost control of the Government, and the 1992 Presidential election in the United States, in which Bill Clinton won a landslide victory against George H. W. Bush, who had seen a rapid decline in public approval since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Early in 1991, Bush the Elder's approval polls had hovered well above 80%. Wade Hampton Affair as the Beer Hall Putsch Both of these events act to slow the seemingly meteoric rise of their respective parties. In the OTL the Nazi tried to forcefully seize power but their planned coup was put down with its leaders imprisoned. Whilst the Freedom Party which has nearly won the Confederate Presidential Election had its reputation destroyed after Confederate President Wade Hampton V was assassinated by a Freedom Party Member. Both of these events occur in similar times the Beer Hall Putsch occurring in 1923 and the Wade Hampton Affair in 1922. Both events stopped each party from achieving power until 1933 in their respective timelines. In addition, the Hyperinflation that had helped fuel the parties rise to prominence was solved shortly after these debacles. Lastly whilst these events stalled these parties rise to power they also helped the parties leaders to focus their efforts on laying down their political manifesto in book form. WIth Featherston's Over Open sights paralleling Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf. Louisiana as Austria There are many parallels between Radical Liberal Louisiana as depicted by Turtledove and OTL Austria in the period between 1934 and 1938, under the regime known as "Austrofascism". Turtledove's Huey Long established in Louisiana a dictatorial regime that was at once similar to, but independent of and hostile to, the Confederate States under Jake Featherston's Freedom Party; in OTL, Austrian Fascism used oppressive measures similar to German Nazism but was independent of and hostile to it. Long differed from Featherston in not fomenting anti-black racism, as the Austrian Fascists did not foment anti-Semitism. Long's assassination was engineered by Featherston and carried out by locals; the Austrian Fascist leader Engelbert Dolfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis. Finally, after the Freedomites took over Louisiana, the flourishing black community of New Orleans, detested by Featherston, fell victim to the Population Reduction. Similarly, after the Nazis took over Austria, the flourishing Jewish community of Vienna, detested by Hitler, fell victim to the Holocaust. However, the analogy is not perfect, as Louisiana had been part of the CSA for over 70 years, whereas Austria had never been a part of Germany. US in the Second Great War as the Soviet Union in WWII There are many parallels between the strategic role of the US in the Second Great War and that of the Soviet Union in OTL Second World War (though no similarity in their respective internal regimes). The Confederates launches Operation Blackbeard on June 22, 1941, with a surprise attack penetrating deep into US territory; the Germans launched Operation: Barbarossa (translated "Operation Redbeard") on the same date and penetrated deep into Soviet territory. The Confederates continue their offensive, getting deeper and deeper, until the decisive long drawn fight at Pittsburgh, which ends with their defeat and massive loss. This battle is an analog of the Battle of Stalingrad. Thereupon, the Confederates are pushed back and back, thrown out of all the US territory they invaded, having their own territory invaded in turn, and finally being totally defeated and have all their territory occupied, a fate similar to that of Nazi Germany's. In the latter parts of the war, however, the parallel with OTL Soviet Union becomes more loose: the US does all the work itself, and there are no other anti-Confederate armies pushing from the other side, as were the British and OTL U.S. against Germany; nuclear weapons are used by both sides in the last phase of the war, as were not in the European war; and the war ends with the US resolved to keep the Confederate territories (except for Texas, which, it is implied, will never be anything more than a subservient puppet state) under a direct, open-ended military occupation, rather then set up a subservient Confederate government in Richmond (as the Soviets did in East Berlin). In the latter part of the war, there are also some parallels to the later part of OTL American Civil War, with Irving Morrell roughly duplicating OTL William Sherman's route through such locations as Chattanooga, using 20th-century weapons. Morrell also fits as a Zhukov analogy, commanding the big armies of the war in the biggest victories. With his service in the Battles of Fredericksburg as an analogue to Rhzev and his status as a trouble shooter. Abner Dowling would be Malinovsky, a general of great skill serving on secondary axes of operation. Added to this, the USA also had the elements to make a more modern army than the Confederacy did, but chose for political reasons not to do so. Where in OTL the USSR did so because of the Great Purges, the USA in the ATL does so because of not wanting to pay the expenses of a continued military buildup. US Socialist Party as European Socialist and Social-Democratic Parties In virtually all European countries, mass-based Socialist parties developed in the late 19th Century. While there were many differences from one country to another, a general pattern fits most of them: A rapid growth of both Trade Unions and their allied Socialist parties, in the last decades of the 19th Century and the early decades of the 20th; bursting into mainline politics and soon offering serious competition to long-established parties; a crisis during the First World War when most Socialist Parties supported each its own country's war effort, to the great disgust of these parties' left-wing; post-war recovery, with several Socialist parties getting to power - and once in power, failing to enact any far-reaching Socialist policies, and becoming increasingly mainstream. None of the above happened in the United States. Various small Socialist parties were founded, especially by left-wing German immigrants to the US, but none of them ever managed to attract a serious following among the workers, who should have been their natural constituency. They remained small splinter groups, with no real base of support, attracting mainly intellectuals rather than workers. While American trade unions did grow, they did not ally themselves to the small Socialist splinter parties, but rather found a political home in the US Democratic Party, which neither was nor ever claimed to be Socialist. In the Southern Victory timeline, the US Socialist Party follows the above European model with all the typical stages enumerated. American Socialists in this timeline are in general led by the same people as in OTL, but they are more successful. In OTL Friedrich Sorge led a small splinter party, but never managed to get a serious foothold among the workers, and finally retired from politics in frustration; in Southern Victory he allies himself with Lincoln and is flabbergasted to find himself in a real mass party. In OTL Eugene V. Debs was a principled leader of a splinter party, who contested elections as a revolutionary tactic and never got elected to any public office, and who spent years in prison due to outspoken opposition to the First World War; in Southern Victory he is a more pragmatic senator who leads his party to support the Great War at its outset. In OTL Upton Sinclair was a well known radical writer, but his active political career did not get further than a single credible but unsuccessful campaign for Governor of California; in Southern Victory he is President of the United States for two full terms. However, after the Socialists under Sinclair and the fictional Blackford fail to enact any thorough Socialist transformation in American society, the party becomes more mainstream. Afterwards, Turtledove no longer populates its leadership with unsuccessful American Socialists of OTL, but with mainstream politicians of OTL, mainly from OTL Democratic Party. Al Smith, the next Socialist President, had in OTL actually stood considerably to the right of Franklin D. Roosevelt and opposed the New Deal policies. Thus, Southern Victory US politics in the 1920s and 1930s gradually depart from the "European Model" and become more similar to the US politics of OTL, broadly under the rule: Southern Victory Socialist Party = OTL Democratic Party; Southern Victory Democratic Party = OTL Republican Party. Thus, prominent Republican politicians of OTL such as President Herbert Hoover and Senator Robert Taft are Democrats in Southern Victory - consistently being in whatever is the more right wing party in each of these timelines. The Republican Party in Southern Victory was eclipsed by the rise of the Socialists and no longer a serious contender for power, yet retained a solid core of loyal supporters and continued to be represented in Congress. This might be modeled on the British Liberal Party, once one of the two main parties of British politics, which was similarly eclipsed by the rise of the Labor Party and similarly retained a solid core of loyal supporters for much of the 20th Century. The Trial of Clarence Potter as the post-WWII Trial of Otto Skorzeny After the end of World War II in OTL, many Nazi war criminal and military personnel were put on trial. Otto Skorzeny was put on trial in Dachau for commanding German soldiers (with English skills and Allied uniforms) disguised as Allied personnel behind American and British front lines, to cause trouble for the Allies by disrupting the Allied chain of command by destroying field telephone wires and radio stations, and issuing false orders, etc. Clarence Potter, too, was put on trial by the US army for commanding much the same Confederate operations behind US lines. Under the Hague Convention, Skorzeny could have been imprisoned or executed for breaking the rules of war but was saved due to the timely intervention of F.F. E Yeo-Thomas, an ex-Allied Special Operations agent, who argued that the Allies did much the same things to the Germans during the course of the war. Clarence Potter was also accused of breaking the international convention by putting Confederate operatives behind US lines and almost convicted, but was saved the same way by General Irving Morrell, who testified that the US military operatives also donned Confederate uniforms behind enemy lines. The Mormon Utah Troubles as The Troubles The Utah Troubles is the Southern Victory's analogue to the real-life The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Much like that event, The Utah Troubles involved sectarian/ethnic conflict between two groups (in this case: the Mormons vs the United States government as with Irish Republican Catholics vs Ulster Loyalist Protestants) that involved armed terrorism and paramilitary warfare as well as taking place sporadically over the years. Category:Trivia *